Page 12 - UKRRptOct20
P. 12
apart from that in line with Ukraine's current foreign policy:
United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Germany and France: "comprehensive cooperation [representing] a strategic priority"
Azerbaijan, Georgia, Lithuania, Poland, Turkey: "strategic partnership"
Baltic and North European countries: “partnership”
Countries of Central and South-Eastern Europe: "good neighborly relations" Belarus and Moldova: “pragmatic relations”
Countries in Africa, Asia, Middle-East and South America: “mutually beneficial economic cooperation”
2.5 Rada approves a pro-Nato restructuring bill
Ukraine’s parliament approved on September 17 a law to reform foreign intelligence/reconnaissance structures to bring them closer to NATO requirements. The bill was approved in the second, final reading by 258 MPs, compared to 226 needed.
It identifies Ukraine’s intelligence bodies as the defence Ministry, the Foreign Intelligence Service, and the intelligence division of the State Border Service. It outlines the legal and organizational basis for the functioning of intelligence, the legal status and social guarantees of intelligence employees, and the order of intelligence oversight. Intelligence bodies are responsible for the timely securing of information, the realization of Ukraine’s national interests and combatting foreign threats to national security.
Earlier that day, President Zelenskiy called for activating reforms aimed at receiving an invitation for a NATO Membership Action Plan (MAP) at the opening ceremony for Rapid Trident 2020 military training exercises in the Lviv region. He mentioned that he signed earlier that week Ukraine’s national security strategy, based upon, which NATO membership is the state strategic course. “We should achieve the mutual compatibility of Ukraine’s Armed Forces with the corresponding structures of the alliance’s states maximally quickly,” the president said, as reported by the eurointegration.com.ua news site.
The National Security Strategy signed by Zelenskiy is Ukraine’s third such document, the news site said. Although NATO is mentioned less than half as many times as in the previous security strategy (issued in 2015), its NATO goals are more ambitious. The 2015 document calls for “the development of a special partnership with NATO” for “forming the conditions for NATO entry.” Instead, the 2020 document calls for “the development of a special partnership with NATO with the goal of gaining full NATO membership” as being “the state’s strategic course.” At the same time, the document drops the goal of becoming part of the NATO Reflection Process of renewing the organization’s strategy, which should be a priority, the eurointegration.com.ua news site said in the article published on September 15.
“This NATO chapter in the Zelenskiy presidency is merely the latest example of its politics of trying to take advantage of all its available resources for the short term, while accomplishing little for the long term. The Zelenskiy administration is willing to cooperate with any foreign entity – be it the US, the IMF, the E.U. and Russia – as long as it brings some immediate political dividends. In this case, it has decided to ingratiate itself upon the alliance (with no realistic chance for a MAP for as long the war is being waged) in exchange
12 UKRAINE Country Report October 2020 www.intellinews.com